Chapter 456: Collecting Heavenly Fire

One and a half months later.

Yan Buji fulfilled the order, also counting it as a small profit in spiritual stones.

The progress of sorting out the profound technique remained slow, so Yan Buji was not impatient either; taking it slow was fine.

Cultivation is like that: when it's fast, it's extremely fast; when it's slow, it's terrifyingly slow.

In short, Yan Buji didn't want any mishaps when advancing in martial dao, so he wanted to be as meticulous as possible.

In the blink of an eye, another year passed.

Yan Buji's shop also had quite a few repeat customers, and its reputation was decent; at least he sold only top-grade pills, whether first or second transformation, although they were more expensive than those on the market, their effects were also better.

Business was lukewarm; besides cultivation, Yan Buji also worked hard to devise an accumulation device capable of containing heavenly fire.

Although it was troublesome, Yan Buji gradually clarified the context and roughly sketched out a draft.

This is an accumulation device similar to a bottle.

Made primarily of fusang wood, it respectively has a bottle body, bottle cap, fire-suppressing outer wrapping, a gilded base, and a spiral device that absorbs flames.

Afterwards, Yan Buji began searching for suitable spiritual materials to refine into the device.

The bottle body and cap could both be refined from that piece of fusang wood, but the base and outer wrapping—one makes the device overall more stable, the other can slightly suppress the heavenly fire's power—so they are quite important.

As for the crucial flame-absorbing spiral device, although placed inside the bottle, it requires extremely high fire resistance, so Yan Buji inquired around and eventually found the spiritual material he wanted at an auction.

Searching for these spiritual materials also took considerable time, whereupon Yan Buji began refining them into the device, crafting this accumulation device.

Three months passed.

Yan Buji successfully finished refining all the device components thoroughly, reaching the stage of sealing and assembling.

This stage turned out longer than Yan Buji imagined, taking a full year to completely finish.

At this point, Yan Buji had in hand a wooden bottle of moderate size, appearing unremarkable; its base had a pedestal, and the bottle body was wrapped in a layer of iron skin.

"Third‑Transformation Fire‑Absorbing Bottle... I don't know if it can contain that heavenly fire."

Yan Buji thought it over and decided to go try it.

Yan Buji had long known the location of the heavenly fire, but he had no good way to collect it; if he forced his own magical power to suppress it, he'd have to divert attention daily to maintain the suppression, which is far inferior to directly storing it after crafting the accumulation device.

Of course, that heavenly fire is not ordinary either; although the upper limit of his accumulation device is not low, limited by Yan Buji's refining methods there has been little progress, so he could only craft a third‑transformation accumulation device.

Moreover, this fire‑absorbing bottle is not Yan Buji's personal accumulation device, so he still felt a bit worried.

However, it's not a big problem; if necessary, he could suppress it with fusang spiritual wood, then find a way to refine it, losing at most a single piece of fusang spiritual wood.

At present, the value of heavenly fire still exceeds that of a piece of six‑transformation celestial material.

Soon, Yan Buji left the sea and arrived at a secluded seabed; after opening a seal, he followed the underwater tunnel all the way to a deeper ocean trench.

After swimming into an underwater cavern, Yan Buji went upstream; here the cavern contained no water, which he guessed might be due to a reverse flow formed within the seabed mountain, creating this peculiar geological feature.

Pitch black all around, unable to see one's hand before one's face; but upon reaching the shore and looking ahead, he saw a stone pillar burning with an icy‑blue flame.

"The Shocking Wave Fire, ranked eighty‑first on the heavenly fire list, though fire‑aligned, also possesses the special properties of water and ice sealing." Yan Buji pondered.

One can only say the world is vast and full of wonders; the eerie cold displayed by the Shocking Wave Fire easily makes one instinctively think it is some unique spiritual water‑ice, but in fact it is genuine flame, and a difference in nature does not imply a difference in essence.

Existence is justified; Yan Buji thought it over and then began to act to absorb the flame.

Fortunately, although this heavenly fire is quite formidable, with no one controlling it and given Yan Buji's fire‑control ability not weak, it was easy to divert it from the stone pillar and draw it into the fire‑absorbing bottle.

Yan Buji controlled his magical power; the Shocking Wave Fire on the stone pillar flowed into the fire‑absorbing bottle like a trickle, and suddenly a violent vibration transmitted!

Huh?!

Yan Buji hurriedly stopped and looked up.

He saw a large fire seed lodged in the stone pillar; Yan Buji lifted the fire‑absorbing bottle to face the fire seed, pointed his sword‑fingers east and west with both hands, and his magical power flowed from his fingertips, igniting ground‑origin fire that wove a great net around the surroundings!

Accompanied by the ground‑origin fire threads forming the net, it gradually covered the surrounding cliffs and stone pillar, and the vibration gradually subsided.

"Kun goes west‑east, Kan and Li intersect; glad I kept it under control."

Yan Buji breathed a sigh of relief; fortunately his fire‑control ability is not weak, otherwise if this place collapsed and caused that fire seed to explode, he'd likely suffer some injury before escaping.

Afterwards, Yan Buji flipped the net again, pulling the fire seed out of the stone pillar and stuffing it into the fire‑absorbing bottle.

Success!

Feeling the icy‑cold fire‑absorbing bottle, Yan Buji left the place satisfied.

After returning to his shop, Yan Buji took out the fire‑absorbing bottle and began to think carefully.

"Similar heavenly‑earth spiritual fire must have a source; if that fire seed is not obtained, it is impossible to refine this heavenly fire." Yan Buji thought.

This is like the relation between tree roots and trunk; the principle of using fire is the same—the essential power of fire resides in the fire seed; it's impossible to say that someone else releases a fire technique at you and you can turn it around for your own use—that would be unreasonable.

Of course, myriad techniques exist in the world; Yan Buji dare not assert definitively that such a thing does not exist.

However, for an alchemist, the better the fire seed, the more helpful it is for pill‑making; especially this heavenly fire, although its properties differ, its essential firepower is sufficient to fully calcine most spiritual materials, and even celestial material is enough.

However, Yan Buji knows that forcing his own magical power to drive the heavenly fire is somewhat difficult; logically, the fire seed of heavenly fire should also contain fire‑aligned Dao marks, so heavenly fire is comparable to the methods of a Nascent Soul cultivator.

However, unlike ordinary human fire, once a cultivator reaches the Golden Core and Nascent Soul stages they can themselves nurture a strand of human fire; heavenly fire is evidently more convenient, the only drawback being that refining it is troublesome.

"But now, with my magical power, driving the fire seed is quite difficult."

This is not a problem of quantity of magical power, but of quality.

Nascent Soul cultivators are strong precisely because the Dao marks they have cultivated imbue their magical power with the power of those Dao marks, enabling them to wield abilities beyond imagination.

Even a Golden Core cultivator, if they want to drive heavenly fire, can only rely on quantity to prevail.

Even if Yan Buji practiced the nine‑turn technique, he probably couldn't sustain driving heavenly fire for long, let alone now when he still can't refine it.

For now, he can only store it away for future use.